Driver who overdosed, crashed into building gets prison term

A Carrollton man was sentenced to one year in prison on a drug charge stemming from a car crash into a downtown Canton coffee shop.

By Ed Balint Repository staff writer

CANTON Stark County Judge Frank Forchione said a police video from a drug case will be a powerful tool in warning youth of the dangers of heroin.

The footage shows a police officer trying to revive Christopher J. Burris with two doses Narcan. A paramedic administered another two doses.

The 30-year-old Carrollton man had overdosed on the powerful opioid carfentanil. Burris and John T. Tarr, a passenger, had both passed out in a vehicle in the McDonald's parking lot on Tuscarawas Street E on Sept. 8.

A man walking past the vehicle stopped and tapped on the window, but the car continued along Tuscarawas before accelerating across Walnut Avenue NE and slamming into Muggswigz Coffee & Tea.

Stark County Assistant Prosecutor Hope Konovsky said the video cited by Forchione was disturbing and asked jurors to consider it among the other pieces of evidence when deciding Burris' fate following a trial this week in common pleas court. Jurors found Burris guilty of aggravated possession of drugs and operating a vehicle under the influence of alcohol, a drug of abuse or a combination of them.

Forchione sentenced Burris to the maximum 12 months in prison for the drug possession charge. Another one-year sentence for the OVI charge must run at the same time, Konovsky said, citing state law.

Following the sentence, the assistant prosecutor said of the video, "His face, the sounds he was making, it was really disturbing to watch. It's incredible that somebody would do this to themselves."

People had been sitting at tables outside Muggswigz before the car plowed into the building, Konovsky said. Nobody was injured inside or outside the building, which suffered damage from the crash.

"You put this whole community at risk for your selfish actions," Forchione said. "It is good to help people but God only helps those who help themselves. I don't think you're getting the message. Maybe my sentence will wake you up. I don't know what else will."

Of the carfentanil, the judge said, the drug is "100 times more powerful than heroin. I mean, that's used to sedate an elephant ... and this isn't a zoo, this is life."

The co-defendant in the case, Tarr, 34, of Toronto, Ohio, recently pleaded guilty to a charge of aggravated possession of drugs, a fifth-degree felony. He is awaiting sentencing.

A jury deliberated for only about 30 minutes before reaching a verdict late Wednesday morning in Burris' trial.

Konovsky had asked for the maximum one-year sentence on the drug count. Burris rejected a plea offer of probation and drug treatment; he has a prior heroin-related conviction and violated his probation for testing positive for heroin.

"I seriously don't understand the grip this drug has on people," she said.

Burris' attorney, Patrick Cusma, had argued to jurors that Tarr was found in possession of the drug, not his client. Cusma also said that police failed to perform a blood test on Burris that could have provided additional evidence in the case. "Something was wrong with my client," he said during closing arguments. "We just don't know what."

Narcan was found in Burris' vehicle, but that isn't proof that he had been using heroin or carfentanil, Cusma said. Konovsky, meanwhile, told jurors that the "totality" of the evidence proved the case, including track marks on Burris' arm and a syringe cap he possessed.

Prior to sentencing, Cusma said, "I'm not saying that this man didn't put other people in danger. I believe he needs help."